Poverty in the Third World

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich" John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1917 - 63, 35th President of the USA.

Why isn't the world equal? Our world is divided in to two - those who have and those who do not. Globally this division exists between the rich countries in the north and poor countries in the south. Within this broad division between the rich and the poor we find that in each country we have similar division. Even in the richest country in the World, the United States of America, there are people, although small in number, who live in abject poverty. Similarly in even the poorest country in the world like Bangladesh, there are few who would be considered rich even by the standards of rich counties. Why do some people live in abject poverty and why do others live in the lap of luxury? Why are the children of these wealthy people given the opportunities that the children of those living in less fortunate circumstances are denied or have never even heard of? Every human being on this planet must have asked these questions to himself or herself at some point in their lives.

While the first question could be answered simply in a few words with, "That's life, C'est la vie," the answer to the last two questions could have some very long and complex answers. I am sure these questions would require a lot of thinking and re-thinking before one answers them.

Poverty is a serious problem. It needs to be recognized, addressed, and resolved Poverty is found everywhere. Every country has its percentage of low-income earners, but some countries have many more people living in unfortunate circumstances than others do. Poverty is an area of concern as it brings with it a host of problems within the country, as well as on a global scale. . In order for us to address the issue of poverty, there is need for us to define what poverty is. The worst kind of poverty is when people cannot get food and therefore they are thin and weak and many starve to death. Unfortunately this is still happening in many parts of the world. In my opinion this is the highest level of poverty and there is no reason at all why this should be happening. Partly this has to do with the policies of the rich countries. In Europe every year thousands of tones of wheat, butter and other food items are destroyed in order to maintain high commodity prices for their farmers. A slightly lower levels of poverty is where people have food to eat but do not have access to safe drinking water, health services, education and decent houses to live in. This is a much more pervasive poverty in the world today.

The countries which have the most poverty are the so-called "Third World countries." (I've never been very completely comfortable with that term. I often prefer the term, "lesser developed countries.") These countries include the economically under-developed countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The general working population of these countries live on less than $2 a day, while in the United States, the minimum wage is approximately $6 per hour! How can we expect circumstances to be more balanced on a global scale if this is just one of the major differences between the First and the Third World?

Some other facts about lesser developed countries include:

1,300 million people in this world do not have access to drinking water - as a result, 80% of illnesses are caused by contaminated drinking water.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 40 percent of primary-age children have no opportunity for schooling. Around the world, there are currently 125 million children who have never, at any time, seen the inside of a classroom.

35,000 children die everyday for reasons directly related to poverty such as malnutrition and starvation.

The distribution of wealth in the world is terribly unjust: 15% of the population own 79% of the world's wealth and 85% of the population own the remaining 21%.

All these factors contribute to the uncomfortable and sub-standard living conditions of a huge portion of the world's population. What is even more disturbing, however, is that poverty seems to be increasing instead of decreasing. In the past 30 years, if we consider the world from a global perspective, important economic growth has occurred, but the number of people who live in poverty has increased and the difference between those who live in abundance and those who do not has markedly increased. In 1960 the income of 20% of the richest countries was 30 times more than that of 20% of the poorest countries. In 1990 it was 60 times greater. Today 80% the world population that lives in the five poorest countries of the world receives only 20% of the worlds' earnings. In this way the differences between rich and